Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.

The accusations against them include aggravated breach of the peace and obstruction of a police arrest. Reports from last year suggest that one of the actions they were alleged to have been involved in included breaking into a university building and threatening people with objects that could have been used as potential weapons.

But the deportation orders go further. They cite a broader list of alleged behaviours: chanting slogans such as “Free Gaza” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, joining road blockades (a tactic frequently used by climate activists), and calling a police officer a “fascist”. Read closely, the real charge appears to be something more basic: protest itself.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      2 hours ago

      Fucking seriously. Just how much of the world has always been a bunch of hateful shits who only needed a bigger asshole to kick things off?

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      People who want extreme ‘order’ are really good at organizing and fund raising, and breaking the law and daring the rest of us to do something about it. People who like making sure everyone has rights and those rights are protected aren’t.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    It really blows my mind. Masha Gessen, Nancy Fraser, Yuval Abraham, Omri Boehm, and also others not mentioned in the article. Who the fuck gave Germany the right to decide who is a good pro-Israel Jew and who is a bad anti-Israel Jew? Germany of all countries, being in the business of labelling Jewish people as acceptable and unacceptable. The fucking nerve on these people.

    • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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      6 hours ago

      Germany has public broadcasters, which are controlled by councils made up of representatives of different groups like chourches, unions, enviormental groups and well Jews. That was part of trying to make sure that the Holocaust does not happen again. However the Jewish community in Germany is rather small, due to the Holocaust at about 100k. That group is also unlike American Jews extremly pro Israel. That is why anti zionist Jews are such a problem within Germany. So the Israel lobby works hard to get rid of them.

  • cyberblob@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 hours ago

    What people on this thread dont realize. It seems like what they did was quite more severe than just calling a police officer a fascist.

    Translated:

    An attempt was made to drag employees out of offices; the attackers were “also masked and armed with axes, saws, crowbars and clubs”. Six-figure property damage was caused

    Source (German)

    • GreyAlien@lemm.ee
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      What you people don’t realize is that you are distorting reality to fit your narrative. How about telling the whole story instead of insinuating that they did this?

      Show proof, until it happens your statement is worthless and dishonest.

    • needanke@feddit.org
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      That was a thing that happened at the protest in general. The state was not able to prove any of the now deported committed any crimes though (it even says so in your source and the part you quoted was about the protests in general, not the specific people about to be deported). That is one of the mayor reasons it is so problematic, just skipping presumption of innocence and letting the executive punish someone for an alleged crime without having to prove that crime.

      Plus Welt is Springer media, so a pretty unreliable source.

      Source

      the intercept:

      None of the protesters are accused of any particular acts of vandalism or the de-arrest at the university. Instead, the deportation order cites the suspicion that they took part in a coordinated group action. (The Free University told The Intercept it had no knowledge of the deportation orders.)

      Some of the allegations are minor. Two, for example, are accused of calling a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer, which is a crime. Three are accused of demonstrating with groups chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine Will be Free” — which was outlawed last year in Germany — and “free Palestine.” Authorities also claim all four shouted antisemitic or anti-Israel slogans, though none are specified.

      Two are accused of grabbing an officers’ or another protesters’ arm in an attempt to stop arrests at the train station sit-in.

      O’Brien, one of the Irish citizens, is the only one of the four whose deportation order included a charge – the accusation that he called a police officer a “fascist” – that has been brought before a criminal court in Berlin, where he was acquitted.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Why bother with the half measures.

    Just take the mask off and send them to the torture prison in El Salvador with all the other baselessly accused and right denied.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The article seems to say very little about the 4 people. What it does say is pretty light on facts about what they were involved in. Were they vistors? Students? Do they live in Germany? Do they work there? Have families there? Some factual context would be nice. And how/when were they arrested?

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      The author of the article links to their own earlier article in the Intercept that goes in detail: https://theintercept.com/2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/

      The only event that tied the four cases together was the allegation that the protesters participated in the university occupation, which involved property damage, and alleged obstruction of an arrest — a so-called de-arrest aimed at blocking a fellow protesters’ detention. None of the protesters are accused of any particular acts of vandalism or the de-arrest at the university. Instead, the deportation order cites the suspicion that they took part in a coordinated group action. (The Free University told The Intercept it had no knowledge of the deportation orders.)

      Some of the allegations are minor. Two, for example, are accused of calling a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer, which is a crime. Three are accused of demonstrating with groups chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine Will be Free” — which was outlawed last year in Germany — and “free Palestine.” Authorities also claim all four shouted antisemitic or anti-Israel slogans, though none are specified.

      Two are accused of grabbing an officers’ or another protesters’ arm in an attempt to stop arrests at the train station sit-in.

      O’Brien, one of the Irish citizens, is the only one of the four whose deportation order included a charge – the accusation that he called a police officer a “fascist” – that has been brought before a criminal court in Berlin, where he was acquitted.

      All four are accused, without evidence, of supporting Hamas, a group Germany has designated as a terrorist organization.

  • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Context for all the people who think this is some illegal bs: The group of protesters invaded a campus building, threatened staff, destroyed IT equipment, vandalised entire rooms and sprayed a hamas symbol on a wall

    Yeah no let’s tolerate this <3

    • GreyAlien@lemm.ee
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      Would you be so kind as to provide the sources proving these individuals did all the things you said? They aren’t being criminally indicted for any of the accusations you’ve made.

      I’m quite surprise you took time to write a comment this long with so many different words to say nothing of substance.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    This was maybe news a week ago but these four dudes are the exception that make the rule, tbh. Germany is cool.

    EDIT: And they weren’t protestors, they were holding axes, terrorizing university employees, chanting “from the river to the sea”, and calling the police fascists.

        • liedetector31@lemmy.cafe
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          8 hours ago

          Ever heard the term “presumption of innocence”?

          Personally I think swinging axes around is pretty mild compared to all the war profiterring germany is doing, but even if it’s true, they would have no issue establishing who’s wrong in court.

          But hey, I don’t know why so many of yee are so bent on defending genocide.

      • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        In germany you are allowed to sue the state. If they felt like they were mistreated they would have already sued. No answer is also an answer

  • dryfter@lemm.ee
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    12 hours ago

    Nope…I can only handle one Western country going down the batshit stupidity rabbit hole at a time.

  • GreyAlien@lemm.ee
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    14 hours ago

    Zionists on the post 4 days ago were less quirky than on this one.

    Beautiful display of this brainrot ideology, if you can’t deny it, it’s antisemitism…

    If a Genocide wasn’t being conducted against Palestinians, it would be comical how detached these people are.

  • nomocid@lemmy.cafe
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    12 hours ago

    If you need more proof the lemmy world admins are utter pieces of shit, notice how the genocide denialism is still on while dissenting voices are being erased.

    Hell I even saw somebody straight up saying “there is no genocide”

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 hours ago

      Disinformation is fine, welcome even! But if you’re slightly mean to an obvious troll: insta-gone you are!

      • .World mods, being terrible at their jobs
    • DNS@discuss.online
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      11 hours ago

      Y’all have your heads so deep in the sand you can’t feel your anus imploding. you are the product if using a free service such as Lemmy or Reddit

      You think a person in a position of power won’t let power get to their head? Especially in decentralized, anonymous online forum?

      • Eximius@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        What?

        Decentralization literally fights power centralization. There is no inherent position of power.

        Anonymization has no talking point in the discussion of virtual internet power points. Only makes people more true to who they are.

    • Kimmy@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Or they just let you say what you want here… unlike reddit where you catch a ban for upvoting violence.

      • nomocid@lemmy.cafe
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        11 hours ago

        Bullshit. They work for the status quo as much as Reddit does. They ban anti genocide voices, calls everyone who disagree with them “Russian troll”, and overall are holding the exact same line. I get banned all the time.

        • Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org
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          You get banned for using sock puppets and insulting people while using them and saying that nowadays Germany and Israel should stop exist. That’s nothing freedom of speech is for. (c/germany mod here)

          Just want to state that, I will not reply to responses.

          E: nowadays

          • Count042@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            So freedom of speech shouldn’t allow people to say that apartheid South Africa shouldn’t exist? That Nazi Germany shouldn’t be allowed to exist?

            I can remember when opposing apartheid ethnostates was the correct moral opinion.

            What happened?

            What makes Israel different?

            Or are double standards proof of anti semitism only when they’re negative?

            EDIT: No response needed from moral cowards that would have protected apartheid South Africa, Belgium Congo, or Nazi Germany from criticism that they should not be allowed to exist.

            You probably won’t read this, but things like this are EXACTLY why freedom of speech exists.

            You would have condemned Nat Turner and justified slavery.

            • needanke@feddit.org
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              5 hours ago

              There is a line between criticizing a state and arguing for its destruction/dehumanizing their people.

              And tbh for my taste that line gets crossed to often in discussions about Israel and Palestine.

              • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                4 hours ago

                Some States do not deserve criticism.

                Some States deserve destruction.

                The south in the US civil war: deserved to be destroyed.

                Nazi Germany: deserved to be destroyed.

                All apartheid ethno-states: deserve to be destroyed.

                You don’t like that last one? Explain to me why Rhodesia should exist.

                It seems to me that people that think arguing for the destruction of apartheid ethnostates think that way because they are racist against brown people.

            • Wandjina@lemm.ee
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              I guess it’s less about freedom of speech and more about not giving fascistic governments ammunition to eradicate Lemmy and instances like this one.

              I am 100% certain that intelligence agencies are already monitoring this social network. Going against the status quo necessitates restraint regarding certain thoughts.

              I’d argue you can still say these things, but you need to word them wisely. We have to remember they have all the power from the medias to the judicial system.

              It’s an era in which they can easily manufacture consent to do whatever they want against what is deem a threat.

              • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                10 hours ago

                Probably the only non-evil response.

                It fails the ‘all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing’ test.

                It fails the ‘If I was in Nazi Germany, I would have resisted’ test.

                But I suspect that that isn’t the reason used by [email protected]

                I would guess that he would have supported Rhodesia if his government said that to oppose them was racist against white people.

          • Count042@lemmy.ml
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            10 hours ago

            You edited to add ‘nowadays’.

            What a cowardly edit.

            How was it okay to back the terrorist group ANC (Nelson Mandela was a convicted terrorist) and call for the fall of the Apartheid South African government in the 80’s, yet not okay to call for the downfall of the Apartheid ethnostate that Nelson Mandela said the concentration camp they created (Gaza) was worse then any of the Bantustans created by Apartheid South Africa?

            What Israel is doing is quantitatively worse then Apartheid South Africa. Why was calling for the end of that government okay?

            $5 says you’re too much of a coward to answer that question, even if only to yourself.

          • germanymodgenapo@lemmy.cafe
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            11 hours ago

            Denying the existence of any state is a legitimate political opinion, especially when the given state is commiting genocide. You are the one lumping the people with their state by implying wanting the end of the later means willing harm to the former .

            I wouldn’t have to take anti censorship measure if you weren’t censoring

  • F_OFF_Reddit@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The real umbrella term is tolerance, you embrace it and it covers you, you either fall in line and integrate or you’re out.

    Nowhere is set in stone that you have a right to bring the shit that made you flee your country into your host country and escape consequence.

    Good riddance, globalism is absolute shit.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      It’s really really cute to see Germans/Europeans/Westerners pretending that antisemitism is an imported problem.

    • fantoozie@midwest.social
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      10 hours ago

      Beyond the thinly veiled xenophobia and eurocentrism, I find it actually ironic how many of you people spout this line of thinking since it shows your complete lack of mental capacity to engage with the reality that many of the people who flee do so as a result of Western involvement in other countries’ governments, and the rest are fighting a system that chooses racism and violence toward the poor over, and over, and over, and over…

      tl;Dr: keep shitting on the Global South but don’t be surprised when you’re alone while Putin and Trump come for your children and your children’s children.

    • fantoozie@midwest.social
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      I might also add none of the rights you enjoy are set in stone, so maybe when they throw you in a camp you can bring that up to them.